This article reports the mapping of the stones, including marbles and brick masonry, used for building the facade of the medieval Church of St. Nicholas (XI century ad), one of the most interesting churches in Pisa, due also to the nearby famous octagonal bell tower. Mapping of stone materials was performed using a computer-aided design (CAD)/geographical information system (GIS) software package for storing and processing spatial information of the ashlars, obtained using three-dimensional (3D) laser-scanning data, combined with high-resolution images, and stone-to-stone observations. Based on collected data, the facade of the Church of St. Nicholas appeared mostly composed of rocks belonging to the metamorphic Tuscan sequence, quartzites, and marbles from Mt. Pisano area. Other types of rocks were also observed, as black limestones quarried at some kilometers northwest from Pisa in the Monti d’Oltre Serchio area, white Apuan marbles and Macigno sandstones. Conversely, intarsia appeared mainly made up of serpentinite and, subordinately, red limestones laid in white Apuan and Mt. Pisano marbles.

The use of recycled asphalt (RA) materials in pavement rehabilitation processes is continuously\ud increasing as recycling techniques, such as cold recycling (CR), are being utilised in increasing\ud magnitude and greater awareness for use of recycled materials and consideration of sustainable\ud practices is becoming common in the construction industry. The focus of this paper is on\ud developing a state of the art and state of the practice summary of processes used for classification\ud of RA as well as the curing and specimen preparation practices for cold-recycled asphalt\ud mixtures. A variety of topics were explored through an exhaustive literature search, these\ud include RA production methods, definition of RA materials, stockpiling practices, industrial\ud operations, specimen curing and preparation practices and in-field evaluation of cold-recycled\ud rehabilitation. This paper was developed through efforts of CR task group (TG6) of RILEM\ud Technical Committee on Testing and Characterization of Sustainable Innovative Bituminous\ud Materials and Systems (TC-237 SIB)

In the last forty, years semi-flexible pavements have been successfully employed, especially in those areas subjected to heavy and slow-moving loads. They usually comprise a wearing course of Grouted Macadam, a composite pavement material that provides significant advantages in comparison to both concrete and asphalt pavements. On the other hand, the laying process of this material is a two-stage operation, and the realization complexity leads to long realization times and high initial costs. Therefore, the use of semi-flexible pavements has been limited to some fields of application and areas. Recently, an innovative material has been developed to be used as an alternative to Grouted Macadam for semi-flexible pavement wearing course realization. This material should provide similar or even superior characteristics compared to traditional Grouted Macadam. This will reduce semi-flexible pavement construction time and avoid the need for dividing the laying process. This paper presents an experimental program involving the use of FastFWD, as an APT device, to evaluate in-situ properties and performance of this material. The achieved results regarding the validation of this new material by means of FastFWD appear promising both in terms of the material’s properties and resistance to dynamic load repetitions.

Cold recycling is one of the most employed rehabilitation techniques for asphalt pavements and it is becoming more and more important as reducing emissions becomes a priority in the reduction of the greenhouse effect. The main advantages of asphalt cold recycling techniques are the use of reclaimed materials and the fact that there is no need of aggregate heating to make the mixtures. This paper describes the evolution with time of in-situ performances of different foam bitumen-stabilised mixtures made with different active fillers (cement and lime), monitored during the first year from construction. Results are part of a more extensive research programme aimed to investigate the effects of using lime as an active filler in cold-recycled mixtures. Mixtures have been laid down on a specifically designed trial section in Italy, close to Florence. Short-term bearing capacity, immediately after construction, has been evaluated using a light weight deflectometer while to evaluate the mid-term performances falling weight deflectometer (FWD) tests have been performed after 24 hours, 14 days, 28 days and 9 months from construction. During these 9 months the test road was not opened to traffic, so the mixtures experienced almost no traffic (only construction traffic loads). This fact allowed to have the curing process without any influences other than the temperature: it means same curing conditions for all mixtures. Subsequent FWD tests are still ongoing to evaluate the evolution over time of pavement bearing capacity due to traffic. Results obtained positively support the use of lime as an active filler in the foam bitumen-stabilised material and allow to underline the effect of different active fillers in the material behaviour, even if all the mixtures underline excellent performances under traffic loading. FWD tests are scheduled to be repeated every 6 months in order to monitor the stiffness evolution of the mixtures and evaluate the nature of traffic damage.

Evaluation of the in situ bearing capacity of subgrade and foundation layers is carried out by means of enhanced dynamic testing devices such as the lightweight deflectometer (LWD). These devices offer many practical advantages over traditional plate load tests and allow simulation of real conditions of loads induced by heavy vehicle traffic. Devices provided with a load cell and a geophone can acquire load–deflection time histories, sampling data every 0.25 ms, with a high level of accuracy. LWD data are used mainly to calculate the surface modulus of the tested materials with the Boussinesq equation; procedures specifically developed for estimating the material compaction level achieved on-site are coming into use. This paper focuses on the use of the LWD for investigating the performance of subgrade and foundation layer materials for stiffness (bearing capacity) and compaction achieved. Great effort has been devoted to improving deflectometric tests, correlating energy loss (energy spent to deflect the tested surface, determined as the area enclosed by the load–deflection graph) to the performance of tested materials, especially for compaction level achieved on site. The influence of load frequency is evaluated and described. The results, obtained at two trial fields, confirm the reliability of the LWD in roadwork quality control and for a staged design approach to earthworks.